In the recent past, there have been several well documented instances of the inadvertent spillage of liquids causing both environmental, ecological, and even toxicological problems. Examples of spilled liquids include both oil spills, and the spillage of the materials known loosely as PCB's. For nearly all spilled liquids, methods of clean-up and disposal are known, even for relatively difficult ones, such as crude oil and PCB's. However, in order to be able to dispose of a spilled liquid, two factors, not one, are important. First, it is necessary to be able to recover the spilled liquid. Second, it is desirable to be able to carry out the recovery step in such a way that the recovered spilled liquid can be easily and relatively simply separated from any agent used in the recovery step. For example, an oil spill can be cleaned up with a water/detergent mixture, but that only transforms the problem into one of disposing of the oil/water/detergent mixture.
At present, although many clean up methods have been proposed for dealing with spilled liquids, such as crude oil spills, there is no commercially available product which will recover a spilled liquid in an easily handleable form, and also do so in a manner permitting the simple separation of the recovered liquid from the recovery agent.